Wes Tender

My God, but you're really naive if you believe for one second that the ECJ would be fair and not robust in representing the EU's interests primarily, and that Boris' decision was political rather than being based on the ECJ's lack of impartiality. Yes, the decision was political from the point of view that he had pledged that we would take back control of our laws, but then it would be farcical if an independent sovereign nation was under the legal jurisdiction of another country's laws, wouldn't it? And of course under that situation the ruling nation would hardly be impartial. Do you think otherwise? The EU got away with bullying the hapless May and the incompetent Robbins, but soon realised that they couldn't bully Boris and Robbins. When they walked away from the table, it was the EU that panicked and recognised that we were prepared to go WTO, and we are the first country to secure a no tariff, no quota deal with the EU. They really punished us for leaving, didn't they? Many EU members think that they gave us too much, and there are rumblings from others thinking that they might prefer to be out on those terms too. You are still so cock-sure of your opinion that the EU holds all the cards, that they will bully us, that we wouldn't dare walk away to WTO, but then again, you insisted a few years back that we would go for the Norway option, so what do you know? The EU wouldn't dare tip us over to WTO. But that might still come to pass if one or more of the member states vetoes the deal. in the next few weeks.

Where it counts there is no jurisdiction of the ECJ over us any longer, replaced by independent arbitration. If it became a matter of sanctions being placed on each other, that would generally favour us, given their massive trade surplus with us. And you do realise that there is a clause that says that we can leave the EU on WTO terms on one year's notice? I expect that we will just wait and see how the EU behaves on these things, and when we are thriving economically we can hit them with the threat that the situation was beginning very much to favour a position that we would be better off on WTO, so cheerio EU. Nothing wrong with my temple veins, Timmy. How will yours be as the EU crumbles as other member states follow us out?

It is a mark of the situation that we have now arrived at, that in a few hours we will be out of the Implementation Period of the WA, and all that the resident remoaners here can do, is call Farage names in an act of childish, frustrated, foot-stamping defiance. Still, if it makes you lot feel better, then go ahead, but I don't see that Farage is going to be much bothered by insults from a football forum. His place in history for beginning and then leading the campaign for our exit from the EU has earned him his place in history, and Boris will also be remembered down the years as the PM that brought about a successful FTA following our departure, against the predictions of many who said that such a deal was impossible. It has been a truly awful year due to the Chinese virus, but at least there is much to be optimistic about for our future now that we are liberated from the EU's tentacles.

Aren't you the one who called Farage a frog faced berk? 😜

It really is a giant leap of imagination to believe for one minute that we could have been out of the EU years ago, had it not been for Bremner's jolly little jape, and it suggests that you have little realistic grasp of the historical political situation of that time. Even had Major been ousted as party leader, who do you think the Euro-sceptic replacement would have been? The chief candidates were Clark and Heseltine, both dyed in the wool EU fanatics. Maastricht had already been signed by Major in February 1992 and was due to come into effect in November 1993. Major had decided that we plebs should not be allowed a referendum on it. And whoever had taken over from Major, what were their chances of beating laughing boy Euro-fanatic Blair in that following election? The essence of this sort of historical "what could have been" musing relies heavily on an element of reality. Maybe the BBC are planning a comedy programme with this as the theme, but I don't think that anybody over the age of 40 will find it even mildy amusing.

And equally Starmer has been all over the shop. His backside must be covered from splinters from the number of different fences he has sat on

The ERG legal eagles have pronounced general satisfaction with the FTA, so there doesn't appear to be anything in there that is intolerable or insurmountable to change. https://capx.co/this-was-a-positive-deal-overall-but-problems-lurk-round-the-corner/ This is to my mind a very balanced summary of the deal with reasoned opinions on the pros and cons.

I did read his thoughts. Policy lead at Tony Blair Institute - check. FT leader writer - check. Former Civil Servant - check If you don't mind, I'll wait and see what the conclusions are from the Brexit legal experts when they have had time to go through it line by line, instead of paying too much attention to the views of some remoaner economist Blair lackey. If they conclude that the deal falls short in any serious way, they will soon say so. By the way, another trade deal rolled over by the useless Liz Truss, this time Turkey. I understand that the CANZUK deal preparations are going well too.

The "surplus bollocks" is the background to Labour's confused stance on Brexit, which is still now influenced by them not knowing whether to suck up to their metropolitan elite remoaner base, or their leave supporting red wall former support. If the former, then they would still be bashing the deal and coming up with something a lot less derisory than Dodds claiming that Starmer could have brought about a better deal, but unable to say what it would be. If the latter, then they will have to bide their time and hope that the Tories allow some deterioration of workplace conditions below EU levels, which is unlikely given that they are currently higher than the EU's in most areas. The Tories will be happy to invest in those areas to level up the regions and keep that support. Under these circumstances, Labour's best hope is to continue as before; fudge, fudge, fudge. As for your assertion that the EU were certain that we would not leave without a deal, it was their sheer panic that we would go WTO as the deadline grew close, that caused them to buckle and give us more or less what we wanted. The EU hadn't until quite late in the day realised that now they weren't dealing with May or Rogers any longer, our resolve had hardened considerably. Boris and Frost played a blinder and the EU blinked first. Boris is faced with a weak opposition pretty powerless to do anything about the deal. The EU side on the other hand is badly damaged politically along the Germany/France axis because Macron had to be put firmly in his place by Merkel for nearly bringing about no deal. This deal is not the punishment deal that the EU wanted to give us to deter others leaving, but had it been, I'm sure that Boris would not have accepted it.

I would be quite ambivalent about the Scots gaining independence, quite frankly. Without their 58 MPs able to vote in our Parliament against zero English MPs able to vote in theirs, the Government would almost certainly be Conservative from then on. Naturally I would prefer for the Union to continue for the benefit of the UK, but if the Scottish electorate voted in a referendum to leave the UK, then I would have no objection for the reason above. They'll be welcome to lose the Barnett formula payments from us, to raise their own taxation to pay for their socialist utopia, to have the Euro as their currency and all of the border problems trading with us, the main market for their products. And of course as a democrat I will be equally supportive of the results of a referendum vote by Orkney and Shetland to leave Scotland.

Speaking of those shooting from the lip, that bloated Scottish windbag Ian Blackford has been bemoaning the FTA as an unforgivable act of economic vandalism and gross stupidity. He rants on about the betrayal of their fisheries sector, the loss of trade with their biggest market. He ranted on... "It is clear that the only way to protect Scotland's interests, and regain the full benefits of EU membership, is to become an independent country. "This is a very bad deal for Scotland, which will terminate our membership of the EU, rip us out of the world's largest single market and customs union, end our freedom of movement rights, and impose mountains of red tape, added costs and barriers to trade for Scottish businesses He seems totally oblivious that if they were allowed to rejoin the EU, their fisheries would again be wide open to exploitation by all EU coastal member states under the CFP. Those facing a decline in rights to fish our waters, will gladly accept the right to fish Scottish waters instead. They wouldn't be an independent country as a member of the EU. They will have left one union to join another. Their freedom of movement rights will be countered by the freedom of movement of that 400 million peoples' rights to enter Scotland under the Schengen Agreement they will be required to join. He bleats on about the loss of trade with their biggest market, the EU, when that biggest market for them is in fact the UK. Were the Scots to have independence from us, and rejoin the EU, then there would be the red tape and customs forms to complete and added costs and barriers to trade for their businesses cross border with us. What has really upset him, is that this FTA with the EU has taken much of the wind out of the sails of the whole reason for their party's existence. He and Wee Krankie were hoping for WTO.

I was guided by your comment about polishing the turd that Brexit was turning out to be, before the FTA had been properly examined forensically by legal experts.

I just know that you are hoping that it will be the second scenario, just so that you can crow about how you predicted it. At the time of the next election it will also be pertinent to factor in how the EU fares without us. I suspect there will be a general feeling that we left at the right time to avoid the economic implications of its decline when others follow us out.

During the past four and a half years we have seen Labour's sitting on the fence, trying to appear to be pro-remain to the champagne socialist metropolitan elite and pro-leave to their traditional heartlands red wall seats. They were prepared to back the Bill in the House proposed by that idiot Benn to scupper our negotiating position by declaring that we would not accept no deal, no matter how bad the deal would be. Half the Party, led by their current leader was in favour of holding a second referendum, before the first one had been enacted, hopeful that this would return the decision that should have been returned in the first one. I therefore have to have a good belly laugh at your assertion that Labour puts the country before politics. They have little idea of what is best for the country as they prove time and time again.

That's very understanding of you to give all of the credit to Boris and the Conservatives. They can get all of the benefits of it electorally when it turns into a great success. Everybody knows that it wouldn't have happened had Labour been in control of it, so their best position is to keep their heads down and say nowt.

Pledged to vote for it before even having read it apparently 🤣

Our draw against lowly Fulham doesn't look to bad when they drew with Liverpool, who could only draw 1-1 against lowly West Brom, having only two shots on target, against West Brom's three.

Anneliese Dodds, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, apparently stated in an interview that Starmer would have obtained a better deal with the EU than Boris and Frost managed. I couldn't find the interview, but if anybody else can provide a link to it, I would be really curious to know in what ways Starmer could have bettered the deal. Presumably he would have kept us in the SM, CU and the CFP. Or maybe he would have gone the full Timmy and gone for the Norwegian option as some half way house. Bearing in mind that when he was in charge of Brexit policy for the Marxist's Shadow Cabinet he advocated holding another referendum vote, one doesn't have a great deal of respect for his ability to obtain anything better from the EU than the UK's abject surrender to whatever terms they wanted to punish us with.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948093/TCA_SUMMARY_PDF.pdf Here's a summary of the FTA with the EU if anybody wished to see more detail withiut ploughing through the full 1200 odd pages. No doubt we will see criticism of some aspects of it when enough time has been devoted to it by the legal eagles scrutinising it in detail during the next few days. Call me a cynic, but I suspect that the whole thing has deliberately been padded out verbosely in order to hide some legal small print. In any event, something so detailed and important to our future requires more intense scrutiny than is being suggested. I see that Mad Andy Adonis and even madder A C Grayling have never accepted the democratic votes to leave the EU and will not rest until we have rejoined. What a pity that it will not happen in either of their lifetimes, most probably never.

Implementation period? What do you think that was since 31st January? Over 90% of businesses don't trade with the EU, and those that do will have had a pretty good idea of what sort of changes would come about throughout the talks, and what preparations they would have to put in place. Incidentally, the legal regime now in place will be the UK law courts, not the ECJ.

Considering that the main players that formed our spine were missing, we didn't play too badly. Defensively we were reasonably solid and McCarthy wasn't troubled much. But then neither was their keeper. Diallo made a decent debut in midfield. However, I'm sure that Vestergaard would have increased our solidity in defence and added more threat in their box from set pieces. He would also have provided some good diagonal balls forward, and have moved into the midfield, ball at feet looking for a defence splitting pass. Romeu was missed for his box to box energy, but after a slow first 20 minutes the midfield were at last winning many of the 50/50 balls and stringing together some good possession. It was from midfield to the attack that we lacked cohesion. Here we missed Ings badly, not only for his ability to score goals, but his general contribution, holding the ball, and helping the defence too. Long doesn't add much of a threat up top any more, and in the rare occasions that he does, he is either offside, or shoots straight at the keeper. Walcott and Adams as the joint strikers would have been better. Walcott wasn't as effective out wide. He made some good runs, but went into blind alleys and lost possession too often, a bit reminiscent of Redmond this match. In my opinion, Hasenhuttl should have had Djenepo on instead of Long, or otherwise have thrown the dice on giving N'Lundulu a start. Good performances from Adams, Armstrong and Walker-Peters, the others mainly OK. Fulham have been solid defensively their past five games, including against some stiff opposition, so this wasn't an easy match for us, especially considering our players out injured. I understand that this the best run of away matches without defeat in our Premier Division history, so there is at least that upside.

When he stood in the European Parliament and said that he would campaign for the UK to leave the EU, they all laughed. They're not laughing now.

People had various different reasons for wanting to leave the EU. You're still sore after all this time that there were more of them than wanted us to remain. I think that you'll find that the main objection that many had towards immigrants from Eastern Europe, was that they were able to come over here in uncontrolled numbers just because they were from an EU country. Lots of remoaners liked the steady flow of Eastern Europeans, because they could get cheap building and plumbing work done, and a plentiful supply of cheap childminders, cleaners and baristas to serve them their lattes.

Where do think the virus originated? Do you think that it was not in China? Do give us an insight into the information that you are privy to that says it was elsewhere.

Thanks for a sensible grown-up viewpoint. Any level-headed person would want what was best for the country, not to wish failure on the decision to leave so that they can crow about how they were right. Opinions that we would make a success of it, or that we would have been better off remaining in the EU are perfectly understandable, but wishing for your country to fail is reprehensible. We should all draw a line under Brexit and do our best to make the most of the new opportunities that now present themselves to us. As you say, it will probably be at least five years before a reasoned judgement can be made, especially as we first have to see out the effects of the Chinese virus on the economy.